Bahia del Espiritu Santo

Friday, March 14, 2003

019-24.120 N
087-27.900 W

Ahoy from Bahia del Espiritu Santo, Mexico!

Talk about an amazing sail! This was about as perfect of a sail as one could imagine. We had 15-20 kts slightly behind the beam meaning that we flew here. On top of the perfect winds we were behind the reef for 1/3 of the way and had a 1/2+ kt current going our way. That all added up to 9+ kts for our entire journey! We completed our 42 nm journey in slightly more than 4 hours! WOW!

Alegria had claimed that they were going to leave at 5 AM, but when I got up before 6 to start gathering weather faxes they were still here. I tried calling over to them on the VHF, but no answer. Finally, just before 7, Steven appeared above deck showing that they were alive. They pulled up their hook just after our, but we quickly left them in our wake, averaging 2.5+ kts more than them.

As we were approaching the cut to Espiritu Santo a boat named Serenity called and asked if they could follow us in. I said "sure" and they followed us. The cut is about 1.5 miles wide and 35' deep, so getting through that was no problem. Running down the reef was a bit more challenging as there were lots of coral heads and patch reefs and we went several miles. We dropped hook at about 2:30 and Serenity anchored right behind us. Then 2 other boats, Grab a Chance and Lapis pulled in, and finally Alegria pulled in at around 5. I've been feeling like the Pied Piper as the same thing happened on the west bank of Chinchorro. I drop hook at no particular spot and 4 other boats anchor right around us!

Grab a Chance called over and invited us to a pot luck and I was planning on making chicken enchiladas, but I wanted to swim out to the reef first. It was about 1/2 of a mile and there was a strong current flowing from it, so Sue didn't swim all of the way out. I got out and made through a cut in the reef. A 3-4' Baracuda eyed me warily, circled once, and then grabbed a fish while leaping out of the water about 6' in front of me. After that he must have felt that I was OK, as we just hung side by side in the current for about 5 minutes. That was pretty cool.

On the way back to the boat I picked up 5 large conch, some of which turned into Cervichi, but time ran out and I ended up making buritos instead. We had a really nice time at the pot luck. The next day Alegria headed out but we stayed. I was hoping to dive. Joe from Grab a Chance & I went out, but couldn't find any good spot. We tried by the north side of the reef cut, but there was a lot of surge and it was very shallow. I told Joe that we should report that we dove in 200-300 decimeters, as that sounds far more impressive than 6-10 feet!

Not much else to report. From here its on to Puerto Allen at Ascension Bay. I'll report from there!

- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 347